1. Field
Embodiments of the present invention relate to single-walled carbon nanotubes and, in particular, to sorting single-walled carbon nanotubes.
2. Discussion of Related Art
Carbon nanotubes have evoked considerable interest since their discovery in the early 1990s. Potential uses include everything from transistors, digital memory, and miniature electron emitters for displays, to hydrogen gas storage devices for the next generation of environmentally friendly automobiles.
Typically, a batch of single-walled carbon nanotubes available to potential users has a mixture of different types of single-walled carbon nanotubes. For example, in a batch of single-walled carbon nanotubes there may be metallic single-walled carbon nanotubes and semiconductor single-walled carbon nanotubes. Within the semiconductor single-walled carbon nanotubes there may be single-walled carbon nanotubes of different lengths, diameters, and/or chiralities. Each type of single-walled carbon nanotube has different properties (e.g., electrical, chemical, optical, mechanical) that are particularly suitable for different applications. Because they usually come as a mixture not being able to separate the different single-walled carbon nanotubes can be troublesome when attempting to utilize a particular type of single-walled carbon nanotube for a specific application.